


Mic & Double-Kick

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Series: Dethklok Drabbles-a-Roonie-Doonie [3]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Drabbles, M/M, Nickles, One Shot Collection, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 05:12:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: A collection of short stories that center around Nathan and Pickles maybe kinda sorta probably having a thing.





	Mic & Double-Kick

Out of the corner of his eye, Pickles saw Nathan pull out his dethphone. “Stop it,” he said automatically. 

Nathan’s head snapped up with the speed of a guilty man who’d been consciously hoping not to be caught. “Stop what?”

Pickles sighed and fished around in his own pockets for anything interesting he happened to have on him, coming up some papers, a baggie of weed, and... a spoon. Damn. He sighed again and decided to start rolling a joint anyway.

“What?” Nathan insisted. 

“Stop looking at the picture,” Pickles replied distractedly while he picked a nug apart over the paper, pausing only to sniff his fingers and try to remember if this was a sativa or an indica or somewhere in the middle. “We’re keepin’ the party goin’, not lookin’ at pictures of Abigail.”

“I… wasn’t,” Nathan mumbled, slowly lowering his phone. 

“Dood, yer about as convincing as… shit, as this spoon. You got a fuckin’ lighter?”

Dutifully, the frontman patted his pockets and eventually produced a black and silver Bic. Pickles finished rolling the joint, put it to his lips, and instead of taking the lighter just leaned in Nathan's general direction and waited for a light. When it came, he took a hard pull and sat back, draping himself lazily against the couch cushions before letting the smoke out in a slow stream. He passed Nathan the joint and sighed again. 

“I’ll put some hash in the next one,” he muttered aimlessly. “I think I got some around here somewhere…” But he made no effort to look for it, so that probably wouldn’t happen. 

Ha. 

Whatever. 

Everything was fine. 

“Hey. Hey, Pickles.” Nathan nudged the smoldering joint into his hand. “Uh… Can I ask you something?”

“Dood, if it’s about either of those two people that nonna us are talkin’ about, I don’t wanna hear it.” The drummer took his hit and passed it back. “Ash that.”

Nathan tapped the ash off the end over the coffee table. Nice. 

“It’s not. Uh, about them,” he insisted. 

“Alright, fine. What?”

The younger man’s face was screwed up in an agony of concentration. “You know… all that shit I said at the funeral? Before… that stuff happened? It’s not about that,” he said quickly, catching Pickles’ glare. “You know how I said… how I didn’t want something if it meant you not being in the band?”

“Yeah…?” Pickles raised an eyebrow. It figured that Nathan was avoiding saying the S word again, but he hadn’t expected any part of that speech to be directly referenced again. It had been one of those in the moment things, and once it was all said everything was just settled and that was that, no need for dredging that emotional crap up again. 

“Uhhhh…” Nathan took another hit, stalling for time while he collected his thoughts and attempted to put his words in some sort of coherent order. “Mmmmmngh never really wanted it in the first place.”

Pickles squinted through the smoke that was turning the air around them hazy. “What?”

Nathan heaved a sigh and took another hit, out of order but whatever. Then, belatedly, he passed the joint. “I never wanted her. I mean, you know. Not like… Not enough to fuck up the band.”

There was a moment of silence while Pickles digested that and Nathan stared intently at the little pile of ash on the table. 

“Dood, then why’d ya go after her?”

“Because I was pissed off!” Nathan burst out, glancing at him but then eyes sliding away almost immediately. “Because you were mad at me… about the album and, uh, hitting you in the face…”

Pickles groaned. “Ya know, it’d help if you didn’t keep bringing shit up and reminding me.”

“I know, I know. But listen.” Nathan was sitting hunched forward, his fists clenched and pressing hard against his thighs. “You were pissed off at me, so I got pissed too. And then we were on the submarine and couldn’t jack off and you were acting like a fucking tool…”

“Again, not really helping, Nathan.”

“LISTEN.”

“Okie, fine, I’m listening.” Pickles took his third hit in a row, sharing be damned. The other man didn’t seem to want it right now anyway. 

“I just wanted you to shut up about her. And… I did _not_ go about that the right way. I know that now. But everything was all fucked up.”

Between them, amidst the smoke, hung the reality that things were still fucked up. Toki was missing, Abigail might be dead, Charles didn’t seem to be sleeping anymore, and some guy with a beard wanted them to save the world — which, fuck the world, the world was shit-for-brains fucked up all on its own, not their fault or problem. 

“So… I think I was jealous, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Pickles groaned and scrubbed a hand over his goatee. “Well, yeah, Nate, that’s what happens when two doods go after the same lady.”

“Yeah, but…"

As dulled as his reactions were this far into the day — Pickles had been awake for a whole hour and a half, and he’d mostly had coke and beer for breakfast — he felt his stomach give a little cringe of anxiety. That thing, the thing they’d never acknowledged or talked about, ever, but somehow meant that even though by band agreement they weren’t friends they could still go on vacations together and call it a friender bender. That connection. _That_. Nathan was getting perilously close to actually saying something about it, he could practically taste it. 

And that was so many kind of not okay, but if everything was already fucked up anyway…

Nathan had vomited blood in public for him, for fuck’s sake. That was pretty brutal. 

“… I was jealous ‘cause I didn’t want her to get you,” Nathan finished. 

There. 

Once it had been said, Pickles relaxed. He took another hit, then passed it back to Nathan, who took it and slumped back on the couch as though suddenly exhausted. 

“Same, dood,” he said, smoke eddying from his mouth and nostrils with the words. "Same."


End file.
